There's an interesting interview with Hixxy on Uush.net.
Hixxy Interview
Some interesting stuff:
---------------------------------
1. You have dedicated most of your musical life to Hardcore, have you at any time become disillusioned with its direction? If so, when & why?
Yeah mostly back around the end of 97 up till around 2000. I didn’t like much of the hardcore and was so pissed off with mostly the same old formula coming out. I wasn’t motivated at all by the new tunes so I stared to drop a few hard trancey sort of tracks on labels like E.D.M, United Ravers and Tunnel; to try and break the music up as all the djs seemed to be playing the same tunes more or less. At this time I personally didn’t like most of the U.K. hardcore stuff as it was sounding dated and hadn’t progressed much since the introduction of things like heavier kik drums, off stabs or when more original vocals were starting to be used in tracks. The new generation who had just been introduced to hardcore around this time were all still loving it as most of it was new and fresh to them, but the ravers who had been around for a while seemed to slowly disappear. Record sells fell through the floor and most parties came to an abrupt stop, as they weren’t getting the numbers through the doors.
So Hardcore fell into a sort of ' Vicious' circle - because sales dropped, producers didn’t want to produce tunes that weren’t going to sell, so the djs didn’t have new material to play. Because of this the ravers got bored, hearing the same tunes and sets every weekend which made club/event attendance’s drop, which made less and less people interested in hardcore which then made record sells drop even more ...and so on and so on...
A scene couldn’t survive on the few producers and record labels that were still putting out tracks every month and towards the end of 1999 most labels had totally stopped.
2. What were your thoughts on the future of the Hardcore scene during 1999? Production had dried up almost completely by the end of 1999, most events had closed down, or minimilised Hardcore and record sales were at there lowest ever! I would like to know what changed your mind, the scene was breathing it's last breath, what made you think there was any future in Hardcore? I.e. Starting up the Raver Baby label..
To be honest I thought that it was all over as most people had gone over to trance or hard house.
When I first heard some of the new style Ferry Corsten /Matt Darey tracks I thought ‘yeah this is for me, big break downs mad epic riffs and it all still sounded really bouncy’. Then around the same time hard house started to get noticed and I loved this as well, it was just like some of the old skool hardcore flavours but with a nice and hard updated sound.
At the time UFO and myself had said to each other that hard house was going to be the next hardcore and that it was going to just start to take over at all the hardcore events. As trance and hard house had pricked our ears up we both loved both styles we decided to try and come up with something in the middle, so we started a label called B-TRAX which was sort of a trance/hard house/hardcore sort of flavor. The tunes got a very mixed response and sales also showed this. After this UFO and myself had enough and it was starting to look like we would both give up on hardcore all together and go into other forms of music. Then I got a phone call from Slammin’ Vinyl about a date in November 2000 at the sanctuary in Milton Keynes. I thought wicked, a rave back at the sanctuary, maybe it’s not dead after all, and just after that phone call I thought that it would be an ideal opportunity to show case a brand new set. So with my thinking cap on, I made up my mind that on a whole my tastes seem to be very similar to most other peoples so I was going to make music that I really enjoyed the sound of. Hoping that the majority of ravers rather than the minority would appreciate it. At the same time UFO and I had started talking about if the scene is going to survive then we need to help some new talent who could also help inject some much needed enthusiasm and fresh ideas into the scene. Not long after that conversation I came up with a new label name and Raver Baby was born. I knew I had almost one year to start promoting Raver baby and get a new set ready for Slammin’ in November.
3. Did you ever have any doubts that it would work?
At first yes, I knew this was make or break for me, luckily the response has been great and the records sales are increasing more and more on each release. It’s been a very slow process getting the tunes out, but they’re getting there again now. Come feb.2002 Raver baby should be up to 2/3 releases a month, + at least one a month on Jelly baby.
4. Do you think Hardcore has regained its fun element?
Yes, I think so, its still fun for me and the ravers. Everyone I’m playing to still seems to be having fun, I think that is one of the reasons it will always survive because hardcore parties always have the best atmospheres and never seem to have much attitude, if any at them.
5. What is your view on variation? Do you think the scene needs a dominant style to survive, or would you say that variation is an important value that was born from its near death?
Hardcore is more varied now than it ever has been, it’s the most open ended music in the dance scene. we got gabba /nu-skool / breaks /freeform/ old skool/happy/ and trancey. What can be more exciting on a night out to hear all that under one roof. Some other styles of music seem to have invisible boundaries that you have to stay in or the tunes you have made are no good, where as hardcore is opening up to have things like a big hip-hop or drum and bass break down or any thing all in at as long as it kick ass!!
I do think that this variation of the music is all helping it to pick its self up again. There will always be a dominant style that is more popular than another but at the moment the more dominant sound seems to be a mixture of all the styles above.
6. What is your view on Cover Mixes of tracks from other scenes?
Well now this has been a hot topic on the Internet recently but my view is if you like a tune it shouldn’t matter whether it’s a cover or not. A big part of dance music originated from people sampling other peoples work and adding drums underneath, it’s a part of the music industry that will never go away. There is a fine line between the rip offs/covers I like but its exactly the same as original tracks, If I like them, I like them makes no difference to me if it’s a cover version, a rip off or its totally original its as simple as that!!!! The covers I have done have always been made because I love the original and want a version that I can play out at a party.
I got sent a promo of ’castles in the sky ‘ from Germany a year before it had come out in England anywhere and me and UFO listened and agreed that it was a TUNE, so we wanted to do a hardcore mix of it. I played it for the first time November 2000 and it worked and went down well, but then it did get into the charts over here about 5 months later and some people seemed to think that it made the hardcore version less credible -why? - Does it matter that its popular and its gone into the charts - I don’t think it does, I think it makes it better when you hear a tune that you already like and then you hear it remixed into a version that’s hardcore, especially if you are into your hardcore! Then when you recognise it on the dance floor, it tends to go right off - majority rules in this game I am afraid and the majority have definitely spoken about castles just from looking at the sales and the reaction on the dance floors. I think rips and covers are hear to stay for as long as people want them, If they wasn’t wanted they wouldn’t be going down like they are.
7. Do you think that recently Hardcore has turned a corner? Where do you believe the scene will be in a year’s time?
Yeah more and more each day as well, I am more excited about it all now than I ever have been. Over the next year I do think if your’e not coming up with the goods as a dj or record label, the nu skool talent will be taking your place. It’s a different scene to a year ago, now promoters are booking djs on their credibility within the scene and what they are doing for the scene. Its no good being just a good dj nowadays, you got to be producing as well. I have realised this along with a lot of the older hardcore jocks and producers. We all know our future is on the line if we don’t keep putting the effort in.
8. What is the next step?
The next step for me is to carry on and push my labels and artists involved with me, I am also going to start putting on a few events in the New Year as well.
9. Hardcore was massive back in 1996. Unfortunately, whenever I ask someone what he or she knows about Hardcore, they firstly do not believe it is still alive, and they will also denounce it as cheap & vocal ridden. We all know what they are talking about, they always refer to it as "Happy Hardcore". My point is, this is the inbuilt view of the majority. Do you think this will change with time, as the new scene speaks for itself?
I don’t think it will ever change the in the view of some people, there are still people with in our own scene who think its cool to slag off some Hardcore because its got a vocal in, or its got a bit of a melody in it or even better because its not cool (how funny is that, ive heard that so many time times - oh I don’t like that cause I HEARD that its not cool!) sheep spring to mind !!!!!
So I think unfortunately hardcore will always be at the end of some narrow-minded twats comments. But at least we are slowly getting rid of the HAPPY tag.
10. Why do Producers only target their music to Turntablists rather than Ravers in general?
Im not sure really but Raver baby will be putting things on cd single as well soon, me an Dougal did it for NEP 1,2,and 3 and they sold really well. Now a lot of djs are mixing with cdjs as well so it makes sense to put the singles out on cd and vinyl + on the cds we can get a lot more tracks so we can experiment even more with some tracks.
11. What is your favorite Hardcore track of all time? What's your fave track at the moment?
All time digital boy - gime a fat beat on flying recs. (one of me favs.)
Now - Styles and breeze - future set
12. Banzaii or Big Brother?
Errrrrr PLACE YA BETS NOW - will silly hikky choose banzaii or bigga bruva.
All of u who chosse bigga bruva....well u is stupid cause u is wrong!!!!!!!!
And all those who choose banzaii....Well u is all super great human beings cause you is right silly hikky choose BANZAII ….AIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks alot for your time Hixxy!!
Quite Eye opening eh?
----------------------------------
Hixxy Interview
Some interesting stuff:
---------------------------------
1. You have dedicated most of your musical life to Hardcore, have you at any time become disillusioned with its direction? If so, when & why?
Yeah mostly back around the end of 97 up till around 2000. I didn’t like much of the hardcore and was so pissed off with mostly the same old formula coming out. I wasn’t motivated at all by the new tunes so I stared to drop a few hard trancey sort of tracks on labels like E.D.M, United Ravers and Tunnel; to try and break the music up as all the djs seemed to be playing the same tunes more or less. At this time I personally didn’t like most of the U.K. hardcore stuff as it was sounding dated and hadn’t progressed much since the introduction of things like heavier kik drums, off stabs or when more original vocals were starting to be used in tracks. The new generation who had just been introduced to hardcore around this time were all still loving it as most of it was new and fresh to them, but the ravers who had been around for a while seemed to slowly disappear. Record sells fell through the floor and most parties came to an abrupt stop, as they weren’t getting the numbers through the doors.
So Hardcore fell into a sort of ' Vicious' circle - because sales dropped, producers didn’t want to produce tunes that weren’t going to sell, so the djs didn’t have new material to play. Because of this the ravers got bored, hearing the same tunes and sets every weekend which made club/event attendance’s drop, which made less and less people interested in hardcore which then made record sells drop even more ...and so on and so on...
A scene couldn’t survive on the few producers and record labels that were still putting out tracks every month and towards the end of 1999 most labels had totally stopped.
2. What were your thoughts on the future of the Hardcore scene during 1999? Production had dried up almost completely by the end of 1999, most events had closed down, or minimilised Hardcore and record sales were at there lowest ever! I would like to know what changed your mind, the scene was breathing it's last breath, what made you think there was any future in Hardcore? I.e. Starting up the Raver Baby label..
To be honest I thought that it was all over as most people had gone over to trance or hard house.
When I first heard some of the new style Ferry Corsten /Matt Darey tracks I thought ‘yeah this is for me, big break downs mad epic riffs and it all still sounded really bouncy’. Then around the same time hard house started to get noticed and I loved this as well, it was just like some of the old skool hardcore flavours but with a nice and hard updated sound.
At the time UFO and myself had said to each other that hard house was going to be the next hardcore and that it was going to just start to take over at all the hardcore events. As trance and hard house had pricked our ears up we both loved both styles we decided to try and come up with something in the middle, so we started a label called B-TRAX which was sort of a trance/hard house/hardcore sort of flavor. The tunes got a very mixed response and sales also showed this. After this UFO and myself had enough and it was starting to look like we would both give up on hardcore all together and go into other forms of music. Then I got a phone call from Slammin’ Vinyl about a date in November 2000 at the sanctuary in Milton Keynes. I thought wicked, a rave back at the sanctuary, maybe it’s not dead after all, and just after that phone call I thought that it would be an ideal opportunity to show case a brand new set. So with my thinking cap on, I made up my mind that on a whole my tastes seem to be very similar to most other peoples so I was going to make music that I really enjoyed the sound of. Hoping that the majority of ravers rather than the minority would appreciate it. At the same time UFO and I had started talking about if the scene is going to survive then we need to help some new talent who could also help inject some much needed enthusiasm and fresh ideas into the scene. Not long after that conversation I came up with a new label name and Raver Baby was born. I knew I had almost one year to start promoting Raver baby and get a new set ready for Slammin’ in November.
3. Did you ever have any doubts that it would work?
At first yes, I knew this was make or break for me, luckily the response has been great and the records sales are increasing more and more on each release. It’s been a very slow process getting the tunes out, but they’re getting there again now. Come feb.2002 Raver baby should be up to 2/3 releases a month, + at least one a month on Jelly baby.
4. Do you think Hardcore has regained its fun element?
Yes, I think so, its still fun for me and the ravers. Everyone I’m playing to still seems to be having fun, I think that is one of the reasons it will always survive because hardcore parties always have the best atmospheres and never seem to have much attitude, if any at them.
5. What is your view on variation? Do you think the scene needs a dominant style to survive, or would you say that variation is an important value that was born from its near death?
Hardcore is more varied now than it ever has been, it’s the most open ended music in the dance scene. we got gabba /nu-skool / breaks /freeform/ old skool/happy/ and trancey. What can be more exciting on a night out to hear all that under one roof. Some other styles of music seem to have invisible boundaries that you have to stay in or the tunes you have made are no good, where as hardcore is opening up to have things like a big hip-hop or drum and bass break down or any thing all in at as long as it kick ass!!
I do think that this variation of the music is all helping it to pick its self up again. There will always be a dominant style that is more popular than another but at the moment the more dominant sound seems to be a mixture of all the styles above.
6. What is your view on Cover Mixes of tracks from other scenes?
Well now this has been a hot topic on the Internet recently but my view is if you like a tune it shouldn’t matter whether it’s a cover or not. A big part of dance music originated from people sampling other peoples work and adding drums underneath, it’s a part of the music industry that will never go away. There is a fine line between the rip offs/covers I like but its exactly the same as original tracks, If I like them, I like them makes no difference to me if it’s a cover version, a rip off or its totally original its as simple as that!!!! The covers I have done have always been made because I love the original and want a version that I can play out at a party.
I got sent a promo of ’castles in the sky ‘ from Germany a year before it had come out in England anywhere and me and UFO listened and agreed that it was a TUNE, so we wanted to do a hardcore mix of it. I played it for the first time November 2000 and it worked and went down well, but then it did get into the charts over here about 5 months later and some people seemed to think that it made the hardcore version less credible -why? - Does it matter that its popular and its gone into the charts - I don’t think it does, I think it makes it better when you hear a tune that you already like and then you hear it remixed into a version that’s hardcore, especially if you are into your hardcore! Then when you recognise it on the dance floor, it tends to go right off - majority rules in this game I am afraid and the majority have definitely spoken about castles just from looking at the sales and the reaction on the dance floors. I think rips and covers are hear to stay for as long as people want them, If they wasn’t wanted they wouldn’t be going down like they are.
7. Do you think that recently Hardcore has turned a corner? Where do you believe the scene will be in a year’s time?
Yeah more and more each day as well, I am more excited about it all now than I ever have been. Over the next year I do think if your’e not coming up with the goods as a dj or record label, the nu skool talent will be taking your place. It’s a different scene to a year ago, now promoters are booking djs on their credibility within the scene and what they are doing for the scene. Its no good being just a good dj nowadays, you got to be producing as well. I have realised this along with a lot of the older hardcore jocks and producers. We all know our future is on the line if we don’t keep putting the effort in.
8. What is the next step?
The next step for me is to carry on and push my labels and artists involved with me, I am also going to start putting on a few events in the New Year as well.
9. Hardcore was massive back in 1996. Unfortunately, whenever I ask someone what he or she knows about Hardcore, they firstly do not believe it is still alive, and they will also denounce it as cheap & vocal ridden. We all know what they are talking about, they always refer to it as "Happy Hardcore". My point is, this is the inbuilt view of the majority. Do you think this will change with time, as the new scene speaks for itself?
I don’t think it will ever change the in the view of some people, there are still people with in our own scene who think its cool to slag off some Hardcore because its got a vocal in, or its got a bit of a melody in it or even better because its not cool (how funny is that, ive heard that so many time times - oh I don’t like that cause I HEARD that its not cool!) sheep spring to mind !!!!!
So I think unfortunately hardcore will always be at the end of some narrow-minded twats comments. But at least we are slowly getting rid of the HAPPY tag.
10. Why do Producers only target their music to Turntablists rather than Ravers in general?
Im not sure really but Raver baby will be putting things on cd single as well soon, me an Dougal did it for NEP 1,2,and 3 and they sold really well. Now a lot of djs are mixing with cdjs as well so it makes sense to put the singles out on cd and vinyl + on the cds we can get a lot more tracks so we can experiment even more with some tracks.
11. What is your favorite Hardcore track of all time? What's your fave track at the moment?
All time digital boy - gime a fat beat on flying recs. (one of me favs.)
Now - Styles and breeze - future set
12. Banzaii or Big Brother?
Errrrrr PLACE YA BETS NOW - will silly hikky choose banzaii or bigga bruva.
All of u who chosse bigga bruva....well u is stupid cause u is wrong!!!!!!!!
And all those who choose banzaii....Well u is all super great human beings cause you is right silly hikky choose BANZAII ….AIGHT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks alot for your time Hixxy!!
Quite Eye opening eh?
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